Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
We were talking about PRS, 6.5mm and 6mm, what calibre was used before those? Predominantly .308. In PRS I don't think the mags have ever had a presence. I think two topics are being conflated here, as you brought out PRS when you brought out the 6.5 and 6mm calibres, all of which max out at around the 1000 yard mark and that was one of the first posts of yours I responded to. Extreme long range is where the rifles that Bill brought up and you dismissed begin to shine, like my .338LM. So if we are talking about 6.5mm and 6mm and PRS then it is assumed we are also talking about .308. If we depart from your >.300 requirement then we would also be discussing .270, .245, .260....etc all non-magnum cartridges. But of course most of those have not been popular in PRS either.
All I was using PRS to show is that they use various 6 and 6.5 for what they do. They could use other more powerful rounds but don't. Therefore we can conclude the other rounds don't offer any advantage over the rounds they use for what they do.
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Of course it is hunting ammo, that was one of the bloody things you mentioned in what I quoted!! Weekend plinking AND HUNTING!!!! If you wanted to exclusively talk about match ammo you should not have mentioned those, LOL!
However for competition/match, most people use hand loads, so then match ammo becomes less important. And my point about rifles and most being based on the 700 action/platform still stands, as it is not available in anything other than the .260 Remington and the other common non-metric calibres.
You use hunting ammo to hunt. You use ammo that is better suited to shoot out to 1000 yard to shoot out to 1000 yards. You pointing out you can find hunting 300WM ammo locally but hardly see any 6.5 means little since you don't see 300WM match ammo on the shelves either at WM/etc. All are available online, or to handloaders, with 6.5 usually being cheaper. You can also make 6.5 CM and .260 brass from common .308/.243/etc brass.
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I am not trying to be rude here and am trying, in vain, to get us onto the same page. This is what I'm talking about when I said you are moving the goal posts around. You've touched on a myriad of subjects at this point: Inside 1000 yards, beyond 1000 yards, extreme long range, >=.300 calibre, 6mm/6.5mm, PRS....etc. And when I try and combine them into one discussion you try to narrow it back down to one of the stand-alones and cry foul because it doesn't align with the conclusion.
6.5s are great 1000 yard rounds. That's been the basic premise. 6.5s also offer generally lower prices to shoot plus less recoil and blast than more powerful but no more effective at the task(1000 yards paper) rounds. Another point I always like to make is that not everything needs a 7mm mag and up to solve. 1000 yard shooting is another area where they are not needed.
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Can you buy them at Walmart? I accept that 6.5CM is more available south of the border, but it is still nowhere near as plentiful as .308 or .300WM, the latter which is of course also more expensive than .308. And you can still procure a .300WM rifle cheaper than you can a 6.5CM, and can do so in a 700, so that upgrades are relatively cheap. And there's some relativity here, .300WM is massively cheaper than .338LM or .416 Cheyenne and other "Unicorn" rounds.
I don't use the Walmart test in cartridge selection. I'm also not concerned with only the 6.5CM. There are a bunch of 6.5s. And even a bunch of 6mm, .25, .27, and 7mm plenty suited.
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On Midway, going by Lapua brand match ammo, .308 is $10.00 cheaper than 6mm Norma and $40.00 cheaper than 6.5x47mm Lapua (which is only available in that brand). They don't appear to make .300WM.
But if we do a search for .300WM, the Hornady Match is $32.99. Comparing it to the 6 and 6.5's: 6.5 Grendel is $21.99, 6mm Remington is $25.99, 120gr 6.5 CM's are $22.99, 140's are $25.99, .260 Remington is $30.79, .308 is $23.99....etc. There isn't a HUGE price difference here and 6.5CM is around the same price as .308 and .260 Remington is close to the same price as .300WM. The cheapest seems to be 6.5 Grendel. That $7/box difference between the .300WM and the 6.5CM is not huge.
Cheaper is cheaper.
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Then consider this: You can buy the 700 Long Range in .300WM for $862.00 (probably cheaper elsewhere, that's Remington's price) with a heavy barrel and aluminum block bedded stock. They don't make a 700 in CM, so you'd have one built. Or, you buy the Ruger Precision for almost double the price, which doesn't guarantee any better accuracy, has WAY less aftermarket support, and at that point, at bare minimum, you are 100 boxes of ammo away; 2000 rounds, before the CM achieves price parity with the .300WM, assuming you exclusively feed both of them Hornady match. And then you are still stuck with a Ruger Precision that you can't upgrade like the 700.
Or of course you could do the same thing with the .260 Remington (available in the 700) but its ammo is still basically the same price as the .300WM, so the situation remains the same.
All of this would of course change if Remington made a 6.5CM heavy barrelled 700. But at this point they don't.
Thank you. My responses above.
There are a lot of rifle makers.
